John Pace

What I do

Mr. John C. Pace became Director of the Geographic Information Network of Alaska in June 2018. Mr. Pace is a retired Air Force officer, a former federal civilian, and has also filled several other weather-related positions.

Experience

Mr. Pace was commissioned in 1979. He had active duty assignments in Germany, California, Nebraska, and Texas. Following separation from active duty in 2002, Mr. Pace served in the Colorado Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve. His military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, and the Air Force Commendation Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2007.

Mr. Pace completed his undergraduate work in meteorology at the State University of New York at Albany. He received his Master of Science degree in Atmospheric Science at the University of Wyoming. He also attended the State University of New York at Buffalo, and was in the PhD programs at NPS and the University of California, Davis.

In 1992 Mr. Pace joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 2000 Mr. Pace accepted an assignment from LLNL to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency at Ft. Belvoir VA. He left LLNL and DTRA in 2006 and worked at ITT Advanced Engineering and Sciences in Alexandria VA from 2006 to 2008. From 2008 to 2018, he was Chief of the Meteorology Division at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. He retired as a GS-15 in May 2018.
Mr. Pace’s areas of professional expertise include transport and dispersion modeling, boundary layer meteorology, urban airflow and dispersion, numerical weather prediction, space weather, and operational forecasting. While at DTRA, he was the program manager leading DTRA’s urban dispersion program. At DPG he managed weather and modeling support to chemical and biological testing, led DPG’s involvement in conducting large-scale toxic industrial chemical release experiments, managed an Army weather modeling program, and created the Granite Mountain Atmospheric Sciences Testbed. His civilian awards include two annual awards from the Subcommittee on Non-Atomic Research and Development, a NASA award for leading LLNL’s support to the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the U.S. Army Commander’s Award for Civilian Service.

Mr. Pace is married to the former Sarah Knox of Dearborn MI. He has two children, Cassandra and Emma. He and his wife reside in Fairbanks, Alaska.